Aerosmith
Aerosmith was one of the most popular hard rock bands of the
1970s,
setting the style and sound of American hard rock for the next two
decades with their raunchy, bluesy swagger.
The Boston-based quintet found the middle ground between the
menace of The Rolling Stones and the campy flamboyance of
The
New York Dolls, developing a lean, dirty, riff-oriented boogie
that was loose and swinging and as hard as a diamond.
In the
meantime, they developed a prototype for power ballads with their
first single Dream On (1973), a piano ballad that was
orchestrated with strings and distorted guitars.
Aerosmith's ability to pull off both ballads and rock &
roll made them extremely popular during the mid 70s, when they had
a string of gold and platinum albums. Their third album, Toys
In The Attic (1975) was their breakthrough album both
commercially and artistically. By the time it was recorded, the
band's sound had developed into a sleek, hard-driving hard rock,
powered by simple, almost brutal blues-based riffs.
Many critics at the time labelled the band as punk rockers -
Instead of adhering to the pretensions of Led Zeppelin or the
gloomy mysticism of Black Sabbath, Aerosmith stripped heavy
rock to its basic core.
Steve Tyler's lyrics were filled with
double entendres and clever jokes, and the entire band had a
street-wise charisma that separated them from the heavy, lumbering
arena rockers of the era.
 The final single from Toys In The Attic, Walk
This Way was released around the time of their new
1976 album, Rocks.
The album went platinum and peaked
at number three. In 1978 the band appeared in the ill-fated
movie Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club
Band performing Come Together which
became a Number 23 hit.
By the time the 1979 album Night In The Ruts
appeared, Joe Perry had left the band to form The Joe Perry
Project. He was shortly followed by Brad Whitford.
By the early
80s, the group's audience had declined as the band fell prey to
drug and alcohol abuse, with Tyler collapsing onstage during their
1984 "Back In The Saddle" tour. However their career
was far from over.
In the late 80s Aerosmith pulled off one of the most remarkable
comebacks in rock history. In 1986, Tyler and Perry (fresh from a
rehabilitation program) appeared on the Run DMC version
of Walk This Way and appeared in the
video. The clip received saturation airplay on MTV and reached
Number 4 on the national charts.
A full-scale comeback album followed (Permanent Vacation)
in 1987, featuring the original Aerosmith line-up. The album
resulted in the hits Rag Doll, Angel
and Dude (Looks Like A Lady). The album reached Number
11 and sold over three million copies.
Pump, released in 1989 reached number five, sold over
four million copies, and spawned the Top Ten singles Love
In An Elevator and Janie's Got A Gun.
The band continued to record and tour into the 90s and released a
number of albums that equalled, if not surpassed, the popularity
of their 70s albums.
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